She betrayed us all
by Keija
Summary: Outside character POV, reflecting on Season I during the events of Season II.


AUTHOR: Switch (kleigh@acidik.net)  
  
TITLE: She betrayed us all (1/1 - ficlet.)  
  
RATED: G - General.  
  
CATAGORY: Outside character POV, reflecting on Season I during the events of Season II.  
  
SUMMARY: The POV of an un-named technician as she works at her desk in the wake of the Season II bombing, remembering when Nina shook up CTU for the first time and reflecting on how it's affected the staff.  
  
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I've worked at CTU for nearly three years and I can't imagine doing another job. Through choice I remain in a low key role because it suits me. Over the time I've been at CTU, I've seen so much happen. The last eighteen months or so, I don't think I'll ever understand.  
  
From behind my desk I'm watching Tony Almeida and Michelle Dessler run around deciding on a plan of action and dealing with the multiple blows that CTU has been struck so far. The office around us still resembles a scrap heap despite the clean up efforts and all of us are showing the stress and fatigue that this day has brought. When I got up this morning for work, when I poured my coffee and checked my mail, I never imagined that later in the day I'd be sitting here at my desk - surrounded by fragments of walls, desks and computers - helping to stop a nuclear bomb and an assassination attempt on the President's life. There hasn't been this much 'excitement' - and I do mean that sarcastically - since Nina Myers killed Teri Bauer last year. It's the first time I've seen Jack Bauer back in CTU and time seems to have taken its toll on him, he's different and I wonder if he knows it. Everyone who worked here when Nina betrayed us has changed in some way; even I have although I'm not sure I could tell you exactly how. I hardly knew Nina, I spoke to her around the office occasionally but our paths didn't cross often and yet even I felt it hit hard when she was revealed as the traitor. She was our colleague, friend, and we trusted her. I wonder if she laughed at us behind our backs, I wonder if she thought we were naive. Perhaps we were.  
  
Nina killed Jaime Farrell, a friend of mine, and even if Jaime herself was a dirty agent she didn't deserve to die. Suicide was the original claim. Jaime would never have killed herself; those of us that knew her would never have bought into it. She couldn't have left her son alone - for all her faults Jaime loved him more than anything. As this day progresses it reminds me more and more of last year. Those agents that weren't here then, those that have heard about the situation but didn't live through it, they're surviving this better than the rest of us. For us its opening old wounds that never healed, it takes each of us back to last year when the world rocked beneath our feet and trust was shattered. Some of them understand, like those that have grown close to people who've been here longer. Michelle 'gets' it and when I watch her, I can see her heart breaking for Tony who remembers and hurts because of it. Assassins don't allow time for the good guys to recuperate so we push the thoughts out of our minds and keep working, praying that this isn't the day we fail to stop World War 3.  
  
Observing people has always been one of my favourite hobbies; I'm quiet by nature anyway, the one that no one really knows, the one who can fade completely into the background and most of the time I like it that way. Right now I'm watching Carrie trying to insinuate herself with Tony, trying to break in to whatever Michelle and Tony have between them, and I wonder how the 'ordinary' problems of day to day life manage to find a place in the chaos of the threats we're already facing. How any of us manage to form relationships and friendships with the job we do, I don't know. How we manage to walk out of the door, go home and live a 'normal' life knowing what we know, knowing what we've done or what we're about to do still amazes me sometimes. Perhaps we need the normal things in life to remind us that we're still human. By nature humans are resilient and changeable, it's one of the things that will ensure our survival but it doesn't change the admiration I have for the people around me who are still here, still prepared to do this job.  
  
Last year things got worse before they got better and everything changed. Nina was gone from the office - convicted and jailed almost instantly - with Tony promoted into her job as George Mason made himself comfortable in Jack's old office. Michelle replaced Tony and you could see the two of them were attracted to each other straight away - we even had an office pool going for a while on how long it would take them to do something about it, I should see if anyone still has a copy of that, I definitely took part and I wonder who came closest. It's surreal, to have such normal thoughts on such an abnormal day.  
  
We all know and we all acknowledge that it hit Jack, Tony and Mason the hardest. They knew Nina the best, they were involved with her to varying degrees and they were the ones who got hurt the worst. I think they forget that the people like me, the nuts and bolts of the organisation got hurt too. We worked here as well; we got betrayed right alongside them. We lost friends, we gained enemies, yet we came back to work the next day and helped rebuild CTU. We welcomed the new staff and tried our best not to wonder if one of them would be the next Nina, we worked with them and we made friends with them. What happened will never leave us and we don't always get credit for that.  
  
I don't know what the rest of today will bring us; I can only pray that whatever it is leaves some of us standing. We quietly ask each other how much more CTU can take before the agency falls apart entirely, we wonder amongst ourselves how strong we can really be and how much more it will take to defeat us. I can hear Michelle getting closer to my desk, she's asking for status updates and I'm just sitting here thinking when I should be working. There is no choice but to keep trying, for any of us, but sometimes I think they forget one thing.  
  
She betrayed us all, and the wounds have not yet fully healed. 


End file.
